Tidehold by outstar
Take charge of an underwater colony and follow a mysterious signal to its source!
Can you expand your base far enough to reach it? Or will you let the dangers of the depths devour you?
- Balance production in between farms, houses and mines,
- Build more O2 tanks to expand your colony,
- Construct radars to show you the way and protect you from incoming dangers
Controls:
Left mouse click to interact and build,
Right mouse click to cancel,
Camera panning: WASD, right click hold or middle click hold
Q to slow down
E to speed up
Credits:
titos2k - coding, design
outstar - design, art, music
Resources used:
Main menu shader: Pixel Water from Godot Shaders by bananaboy, edited
Danger shader: Last minute add from Godot Shaders by zuwiwano
SFX: Epidemic Sound
Versions:
1.1 (Before deadline): Fixed crash on end, added fullscreen
1.2 (Post-deadline bugfixing): Fixed a bug with upkeep math & resource calculation
1.2 (Post-Ludum bugfixing) Fixed infinite money glitch when upkeep/production was added to resources before the end of the day on the building being built/destroyed
Ratings
| Overall | 102th | 4.025⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 229th | 3.689⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 241th | 3.59⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 254th | 3.967⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 68th | 4.476⭐ | 64🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 48th | 4.133⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 53th | 4.267⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 66🗳️ | 50🗨️ |
Cheers!
I was sort of missing a +4 house tile, but maybe I just never found one. I think it could be nice if the o2 buildings would discover tiles over time but without limit (like culture in civ 5) instead of a fix size where you can build them in a grid.
Really cool game!
At one point some of my buildings started to shake and glow green, i punched a radar next to it but I have no idea what it was supposed to counter/do.
Good fun overall :smiley:
I'm not sure why I was unable to build anything other than a house at times, but I thought needing to place the oxygen tanks to uncover the area was cool, and the radar pointing the way kept things interesting. It definitely made me consider which buildings to place and where.
It also goes without saying how amazing the presentation was. Both audio and visuals were great and eally set a good atmosphere as well.
Extremely solid game all around here
And the gameplay is pretty good too.
Nice entry, nice job! :heart:
That said, it would be nice to have a clearer objective or goal to work toward in order to 'beat' the game.
It's a bit hard to start playing as there are many building options and the map seems big, but easy difficulty was somewhat forgiving.
I really like that the tiles look 3d-ish, with a shade. This is probably what I would like to have in my game too, but I wonder if it would fit the environment (probably if being careful?). It makes the tiles much more clickable, like they're waiting for you to click. As a result, even a game cover with tiles is much sexier.
I may need to play this game again to cover its content as 10 minutes were not enough, which is somewhat unusual for a ludum dare game :D
The graphics were simple, but pretty and consistent (and with a nice colour palette!); the music was suitably calming and "deep" feeling. Some bits of the music reminded me of Startopia's OST, in particular the [Biodeck themes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHi2fDzJrS4).
It took me a minute to understand what exactly I was supposed to be doing: I should have read the description, but the text in the menu/pause screen was actually enough. I never quite reached whatever the radar dishes were pointing at, even though I built like 15? O2 towers reaching towards the signal (on easy difficulty). I wonder how the terrain generation is balanced? In some places there was mostly space for houses and very few spots for mines, in others there were *only* "depths" for mines but no houses.
Finally, the random danger that attacks you is cool but somewhat inconsequential. Losing one building doesn't change all that much, and even then it's sometimes possible to temporarily put up a radar.
Hey!
It is awesome Entry! I had a lot of fun!
It is interesting and well polished small management game.
Great accomplishment to do something like this on a jam!
Good job!
Nice mood, and especially nice work balancing the economics of the three resources so well!
This was a really fascinating game that explores the theme incredibly well!
PS: I forgot I was playing on easy lol, and it sounds like the other difficulties get less "minimally" dangerous 😅
Things people probably have not noticed
- The game features spatial sound effects. Tiles farther from the camera sound distant and are positioned in 2D space.
- Maps are created using PNG files, where each pixel represents a tile, and its color determines the terrain type. This approach saved us time, allowing map editing directly in Aseprite.
- The map is 64x64 tiles, but stress tests successfully handled 256x256. This is achieved by destroying tiles outside the visible area and redrawing them when they re-enter the screen.
- If you clicked fast enough, you could destroy your end goal, potentially breaking the game.
- Radars at the map’s end act erratically because their "mistake" ratio isn’t scaled based on distance from the goal. I found the effect funny, so I kept it in the code.
The game is put together super well. Audio, art and gameplay compliment each other perfectly.
I particularly liked that since most buildings balance each other, a larger tremor does not result in an unstoppable catastrophe, but is sometimes able to even bring your balance up. Yes, I played very light on radars :sweat_smile:
Got the economy a bit wrong the first time I played, but after a second attempt it worked out. The graphics area really tidy and polished. Mood strong with good tunes too.
The explosions were sometimes a bit harsh, but could recover.
Nicely done! :star: